I also liked the sweet-and-sour cabbage soup, a daily special. This was definitely more tart than sweet, with added heft from chunks of beef brisket. (Vegetarians take note: The beef isn't included in the menu description.) Indeed, the soup offered the very one-two punch of sour and savory that was sorely missing from the reuben.

What impresses me more than any single dish at Café Osage is the restaurant's overall vibe: a very friendly staff in a unique and inviting location striving to elevate what is, at heart, a neighborhood café, to something slightly more. Like several other restaurants that I've visited over the past few years, it's an example of the bottom-up approach to the St. Louis food scene, trying to improve the everyday dining experience as opposed to opening a four-star, grand-slam restaurant.